May I Introduce Oxford Square

United Neighborhoods Neighborhood Council (UNNC) banners rose recently, along the avenues and boulevards that bound many West Adams neighborhoods. A neighborhood name appears against a field of red-orange above the UNNC icon, a broad, sheltering tree.

Elsewhere the fledgling Oxford Square-rs unveiled bold signs, a neighborhood coat of arms, helping define their house beautiful district North of Victoria Circle and South of Windsor Village. (North of Pico, South of Olympic, West of Crenshaw.)

Place naming and recognition can help foster a sense of community, often the basis for collective action, even social participation. Bravo Oxford Square!

Curb Address Numbers

Curb numbers in Los Angeles are without standard. Many are faded--obliterated even, others employ reflective paint, still others are embellished with specialty stencils.


Raider stencil on Menlo, in the shadow of the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Those that refresh their numbers regularly are often concerned with nighttime visibility, visitors, deliveries, or emergency services; and some, mark both planes.


The flags of the United States and Mexico from E. 40th ST.


A cross surrounded by stars from Jefferson Park.

Oftentimes, charity groups refresh the curb numbers, usually asking for a donation of $5 - $15, depending on neighborhood.

Not So Smart Buildings (Part 2)?

(See Not So Smart Buildings Part 1 from 10/29/08)

Over the years I've worked many a home tour, often as a docent, which has happily led to contact with tour takers, strangers, and the occasional exchange.
Them: "I love these old homes, but I couldn't live in one."
Me: "Oh yeah, why not?"
Them: (some combination of) "They're too busy/It's all a bit much/I need a simpler palette."
And these are the sympathetic folk, who can hold their balance in a Queen Anne parlor, unsettled by Malibu tile and William Morris inspired wallpaper?!

What can I say? We're living in a era wherein concrete floors and a field of white is championed as good design (and it might be, for the few it truly serves). The return to minimalism in contemporary building and design is likely, typically, a response to preceding movements, the playful, sometimes cloying, affectations of post-modernism, and the excessive structural pursuits of computer age architecture.

While I may seem overtaken by the sentiment classique, it is rather that I resist the embalmers, those who would label that which falls outside today's International Style redux as ideologically astern.

This current fetish, for atomic age modernism, the boxy and planar, clerestory windows and machine age materials is fad, standard fad, neither the divinations of the design gods nor the ultimate vessel for 21st century man, but merely another point on the architectural continuum.

Ironically, the era recalled eschewed historical precedents and references, and sought to formulate new concepts of form and space. The revival amounts to sincere appreciation, nostalgia, marketing snap, and cyclicity. The revival is, at times, pure cliche.

(Five images of six wonderful buildings from six different eras.)

Roots

(Continued from Mass Conspiracy, Ambush, Subterfuge, etc)

After a night of fighting in the streets, dispatching emissaries primed with all manner of architectural theory, desperation, and heavy penance, my focus became clear again.

Tested by so many years of undiscouraged belief in environmental possibilism, and maybe a few as an idle boulevadier, I ventured forth, undeterred by the harsh reputations of the wastelands, ranging far.

I located the first house I'd ever known with Craftsman style finishes, belonging to an elementary school chum, dark, unpainted wood, pocket doors, the dimness of the big bare sala.

My first taste of the late 19th century, a mammoth Stick-style hippie haunt, a great emporium of treasures from Pre Columbian burial grounds, pots, tiny silver arms, legs, rosaries, long tapestries wrapped in paper, bursting with pattern, wooden toys, beaded curtains, elaborately carved Newel posts, and lofty rooms of scandalous color, psychedelic posters by Victor Moscoso, carpet slippers, and bootleg recordings pirated at the Fillmore.

The quatre-cuadrado lurked, sometimes contemptuous, sometimes sullen, offering high-sounding sentiments about Baja Alta and our Spanish fathers.
Once or twice a slight faintness came over me, as I aligned the tumblers of influence. The revolutionist forces lay ahead.

More Coattails

Another special election, another ambitious politico bandwagoning or Barack-wagoning. This time Assemblymember Curren Price, described as "one of Barack Obama's earliest supporters", tries for a little iconic assist. What fun.

Maybe I should author a mailer: 'Like Barack Obama, I am of mixed origin with strong ties to Hawaii, please support my community organizing and real estate ambitions.' Then I could riff a little on the Stimulus Package and water conservation, throw in a chart, and a photograph wherein I'm playing soccer with children in Chivas jerseys.

Cash Flow

"So everyone's clients have the same wish list," I puzzled, sitting around a table with a handful of real estate agents, as each ticked off buyer profiles and pursuits, or listing details, between dice rolls of the investment board game Cash Flow.
"Family of four seeking a 3+2 in Culver City for $600K; Single guy looking in Hancock Park up to two mill; a couple with 400 to spend, trying to stay North of Sunset or North of Venice, or West of Centinela, coveting at least 2000 square feet."

"Hey you're the niche guy," they responded, "what've you got, buyer wants old house with septic tank and original sanitary tissue?"
"A mix," I responded dryly, "What I see is a big divide in strategy. Some buyers (mainly yours) are trying to stretch, throwing every last penny at what they consider to be the very best neighborhood, holding out for the collapse of West Los Angeles prices, confused that a lower median doesn't translate to give-a-ways on Lookout Mountain."
"As opposed to what," they challenged.
"Well, I've a few clients who are moving down or downsizing, selling large houses for smaller ones, leaving A neighborhoods for B neighborhoods. Pursuing fail-safe strategies. Let's be honest, if prices in Castellmare or wherever hit $800,000 or whatever, then the larger economy is wrecked, in a post Katrina kind of way.
"So do you think people shouldn't buy then," came the edgy retort.
"No," I responded honestly and reassuringly, "I think for many it's a great time to buy, but nobody's invulnerable, and the myth of recession proof neighborhoods is proving to be just that. Values aren't built from the top down, they're built from the bottom up."
"So what's your point muckraker?"
"I'm not sure it's intellectually prudent to root for chaos, yet assume personal stasis. That's my point. Now pass the dice."

John Hudson Thomas

Described as a "medieval-ist," designing strongly unfiltered period revivals (as well as true to form Craftsman residences) between 1906 - 1945, architect John Hudson Thomas may be best known for his category defying creations between 1908 - 1915, bulky, stucco house castles, with massing-to-the-max, and a strong cubist bent.


Many of these homes, which share the overt geometricism of the Vienesse Secession, are virtually impossible to represent with a single image. Side elevations are seemingly disconnected to the precepts of the facade, like a toppled ziggurat, liberated entirely from the usual architectural contract, Euclidean manners, civility, and impulse.


In addition to ground-hugging prairie style clean machines, Thomas' work of this period anticipates the sky-reaching verticality of the Streamline Moderne and perhaps even those ideas that shaped modular building.


Born in Ward, Nevada, Thomas graduated from UC Berkeley in 1905, and spent two years working for UC faculty architect John Galen Howard. Thomas was a noted member of the Hillside Club, a City Beautiful movement inspired off-shoot, concerned wih the development of the Berkeley Hills, which counted amongst its ranks Julia Morgan, Bernard Maybeck, and Charles Keeler.

Back from the Past

2158 W. 24th ST

Does anybody remember this listing? It never actually made the multiples, yet still drew offers and interest.
The seller decided then, he wasn't ready. Now, I've the blessing.

Kinney Heights Craftsman Retreat

A broad, recessed dormer and a bold two-story bay punctuate this dynamic early Craftsman form, with generous, extended eaves and supple rafters. The delightful complexity continues inside with substantial, successive, detail-rich rooms, each with dual exposure. Dramatic interplays of volume persist on the second floor with soaring, lancet-shaped cove ceilings, and an intimate, tree top sleeping porch. Sophisticated kitchen, with pantries, recycled glass tile backsplash, and superb linoleum inlay floor, opens onto a mature acacia tree, providing beautifully filtered ambiance, and picturesque sightline.

An unusually generous lot size, bolstered by an exceptionally wide frontage, is made even more pronounced by a relatively small building footprint. An unrivaled, outdoor life inducing green space results. The front garden is landscaped with live oaks, toyon, coral bells, lilacs and a host of California natives and climate-suited Mediterranean plants. Gravel mulch gives way to thick shows of wildflowers in spring. Stonework and a dry-stream bed by Pasadena firm Urban Organics capture and keep rainwater. The rear garden boasts a second arroyo, an Italian fountain, and meandering paths dividing beds stocked with apple, apricot and plum trees underplanted with roses, sage and lavender. At the rear is a raised bed for vegetables and a two-story carriage house with room for dirty play downstairs and a studio above.

2158 W. 24th ST 90018
3 beds, 1.5 baths
1,712 square feet
Year built: 1906
Lot size: 58 x 150
Lot Area: 8,700
$789,000

Mass Conspiracy

(Continued from Ambush, and before)

Were the citadels closed?


Off-season at the spirtual oasis?





How does Clark Kent change, I wondered, in the cell phone world?

Had I the stamina to continue, or would I be replaced, by a pod-grown replica, incapable of feeling, perfectly charmed by finely honed granite, breakfast bars, and pre-textured drywall.

My chi was jammed.

Ambush

(To make sense of our narrative, backpedal dear readers.)

Trapped on a lonely, winding stretch of North Berkeley road. Penned on one side by geology's run-stuffer, storey-high outcroppings of Northbrae Rhyolite, a smooth, creamy-yellow rock. On the other by a steep gorge, the sole domain of hardy hillside flora, blackberry brambles, and other sedimentary remains.

Face to face with the fearsome foil, devoid of architectural or cognitive context, like some acephalous ghoul, defying natural laws, nose thumbin' at the herald of reason and verity.

Without the means to disarm or negate, I considered again the teachings of Sun Tzu: The army's disposition of force (hsing) is like water. Water's configuration (hsing) avoids heights and races downward.

Instantly, I stepped off the hillside, seeking a soft landing in the swollen creek below, a pursuit impossible, shades of Butch Cassidy.

The battle for me lay elsewhere, but I needed to regain strength. I needed to revisit purity.

Wednesday's Image

Darling top knot, on an otherwise unembellished gable, like a single crow step.

Interview with Norman Gilmore

1. You spearheaded the creation of an on-line community web-site for the Jefferson Park neighborhood. Why?

The short answer is that a group of neighbors were meeting to discuss the proposed development on 4th and Jefferson.

It was clear to me that we needed a place to share photos and documents. A small part of my motivation to take it on myself was fear that someone else would propose a Yahoo Group, which I really find to be awkward.

We also had been sharing information ad-hoc, with people emailing each other with the somewhat random lists of neighbors they had happened to accumulate in their address books. I know people are sensitive about not spamming each other, but at the same time, they weren't sure how to reach out effectively to communicate about local issues. So people limited themselves to sending out only really big news.

The slightly longer answer is that I have had a lifelong interest in software tools for collaboration. I set up my first online service in high school. A chunk of my career was spent writing corporate databases, which are collaboration tools for structured knowledge. I've also set up wikis for a couple different clients, and have found that to be a very effective tool as well.

Obviously, for those who have online access, communicating online is faster, more time efficient, and allows more people to participate. It's totally conceivable that 50 or 100 or 200 people will log on daily or weekly for news updates or to comment, and it's obvious that no one would even suggest getting 100 neighbors together every weekend in person to discuss neighborhood news. It would be ludicrous. That said, I think meeting people in person helps build trust much faster than an online only interaction. It is nice that I recognize many names on the web forum. But a lot of names are new to me as well. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone, just not every month in a giant meeting!

I also consider this online group a bit of a laboratory. I have theories about how a tool like this might be improved and made more effective, and so I hope to have time to create some useful enhancements for it.

2. Have you a pet peeve, a thing you'd most like to change?

I have a complete menagerie of peeves. But one of my Los Angeles pet peeves is my perception that zoning seems to have allowed auto-repair shops to set up anywhere. I wish there would have been the foresight to encourage them to cluster a bit more effectively. Look at the multiple furniture stores at Helms Bakery, or restaurant supply row on Washington Blvd. I realize these two examples probably weren't created by zoning decisions, but I just point out that competitive businesses can be closely grouped and still work economically, and even out-compete businesses that are not part of a cluster.

Then we would have had all the blight in one (or 10) big ugly Mad Max thunderdomes, instead of sprinkling the ugly evenly throughout the city. I don't see auto-repair shops scattered around the pedestrian friendly areas of Westwood, Culver City, Santa Monica or Beverly Hills. So it must be possible to not screw that up.

Of course, this is a somewhat pointless pet peeve, because I don't currently have any ideas about how to mitigate what's been done.


3. What's the SOJE card night?

I think you mean South of Jefferson Card Night. Heidi Rudd kept an email list and encouraged a lot of the new residents to meet at a monthly card night. Hosting was rotated among participants, usually just 6pm to 8pm, and kid friendly. It was a chance to meet neighbors, but hosting is a lot of work, and card night has been on hiatus as far as I know.

4. What's the rudest thing ever said about your home buying decision (i.e., neighborhood)?

Hmmm. No real rude comments, but perhaps the accidentally telling "Hey, this isn't so bad..."

5. What's the future of Jefferson Park?

Jefferson Park has multiple cultures that share a physical space, but travel in parallel cultural dimensions. Visions that include more than one culture may be able to harness more passion. Perhaps.

The future of Jefferson Park will be determined by the number of people who have a vision for what Jefferson Park could be, and whether they know how to work the system to implement that vision. "People" could refer to residents, absentee landlords, or developers. Too few residents engaged in monitoring the changes to their physical space will allow others to set the agenda.

Practically, we are under served in a variety of categories and we have a struggling business corridor. It seems to me that the key turning points for pedestrian friendly commerce in Westwood, the Santa Monica Promenade, and Culver City all seemed to be linked to zoning, streetscaping, and city subsidized parking. I'm not advocating that Jefferson Park be a regional shopping destination, but there should be a way to improve the business corridor to both the benefit of residents and merchants.